LinkedIn without the BS

LinkedIn feels fake when you'd rather be in the field than posting about wins. But hiding online costs you deals, talent, and influence. Here's how to use LinkedIn authentically without turning into a corporate cheerleader or humble-bragging your way into irrelevance.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Lee with Confidence. I'm JP Warren. Every episode we take a theme from our Monday morning leadership call and apply it to real life scenarios. So you can build your confidence, crush your imposter syndrome, and step into the leader you actually want to be. Short, real, straight to the point. Let's get into it. Welcome back to a new Lead with Confidence with me, your host, JP Warren. If you give me the next seven minutes, I'm going to give you skills and tool sets so you can strengthen your soft skills. And in the meantime, if you got 15 seconds for me, go ahead, like, share, review. If you know someone kind of facing certain challenges, share it with them to help kind of elevate them and give them give them confidence in their skill sets. Today, we are talking about how to show up on a social media platform with authenticity and being genuine. A lot of times people avoid LinkedIn because it's, you know, it's just a slew of people either pitching services, bragging about themselves. It just seems like a lot's going on right there, but it is a great tool to use. It is a free platform for you not only to uh showcase what you're doing, but also to build out your network uh on a genuine level. I remember, you know, growing up, it was like, don't meet anyone off the internet and all that stuff. But it's funny, we have shifted into a society where you do build a personal brand online, you do start connecting with other folks online. So let's actually talk about how to do that, right? I work with a lot of teams, I work with a lot of students that people are very hesitant to put themselves out there on LinkedIn, which I get. Listen, I'm someone that doesn't like social media, but I understand its importance, especially if we're trying to share content like this or teach people or help people out. And that is a great mindset to have as we approach LinkedIn, right? So a lot of people, a lot of technical experts really avoid LinkedIn because they feel it's just a place for people to toot their own horns and give themselves a pat on the back, talk about record runs or best performance or best this, best that, right? And a lot of people avoid it because that's just not their style. That's not my style either. And I get that, right? And another thing is, you know, all these best runs or tooting your own horn, or we did this, we're the best here, best service, best efficiencies. You're actually probably sounding a lot like your competition. You're not really differentiating yourself, right? So, how do we actually approach LinkedIn? How do we approach this social media platform and actually use it for good versus just kind of like noise out there that sounds like all your competition, right? It is a great opportunity to connect with your audience. I have found out even though I'll put stuff out there, it may not go viral, it may not get the best impressions. But if I can help one person out there and that one person suddenly becomes an advocate, an ally, or someone in my circle I can utilize, that is the key, and that is the goal. Your goal here is not to go viral. Your goal is really to slowly, step by step, expand your network, expand your presence, and showcase how you are the expert in this certain or the subject matter expert in your little niche of your of your industry. Okay. So here's some frameworks if you are kind of hesitant about posting or or you don't want to sound like everyone else, you're not comfortable tuning your own horn, excuse me. Here's some um some ways to actually kind of think about how to actually um get out there and start posting stuff. Start, and I highly encourage you to do that. Maybe post two, two, three times a week, right? But make it genuine, all right? The first thing that you can do is number one, if you can teach someone something that is worthy of a post. All right. So there's a lot of people out there that think, well, who am I gonna teach? We talked about this in the Passer syndrome. There's a lot of people out there like, well, I have nothing to teach anyone. I can't showcase what I'm doing. I don't have anything to provide value. I'm not this person to do that. I disagree. I don't care if you're a student in university, I don't care if you're a C-suite executive, you can teach somebody something. So if you have a lesson to share, showcase that. Teach that lesson. Is there something, a challenge in your previous career that you rose above, right? Did you walk away from a great industry lunch and learn all that stuff? And something really kind of stick with you. What can you showcase? What can you share with that, right? And obviously, I'll we say attach a picture with that too, right? Another thing you can do, what I find the most beneficial for me, is that showcasing the human side that we're not perfect, that we're all dealing with common struggles. Whenever we start kind of breaking down and start getting personal and start sharing common struggles, I have found through my previous uh career, call it career online presence or whatever you want. Whenever I start showcasing like the real challenges that I'm faced with, or like the imposter syndrome dealing with, or, you know, if I booked a well, whatever it is. I remember one time I booked a room to do a seminar, right? And nobody showed up. I was so embarrassed about that. It actually took me a couple months to post about it, but it was such a great lesson learned and showing that humility, showing that, you know, that things always don't go as planned. And that really just connects people, right? Because we're flawed, right? We have a lot of, nobody's perfect. So when we, whenever we talk about that, bring it to the surface, it helps people connect with you on that human side a lot better. Another thing that you can do if you don't like tooting your own horn, hey, toot your teammate's horn, right? Talk about a colleague or talk about a coworker, talk about a customer that you really enjoy working with, right? Put them in the spotlight. Again, that takes the attention off of you, but what you're doing, you're showcasing support and also just makes you look look like an all-around good person. So now, this is, man, under five minutes. That's what I'm talking about. So you can get out about your day, start posting stuff on LinkedIn. I challenge you to do two posts this week. Either showcase an employee or talk about something you learned or talk about a struggle throughout your career, right? There's a lot of people out there that can learn from you, right? Learn from your experience. So the next time you post on LinkedIn, and I challenge you to do this, ask yourself, does this teach somebody something, or is it just showcase how great I am or how great our company is? Okay. And stop avoiding LinkedIn entirely and posting only when HR tells you to, or just your company posts something and just share it. That doesn't get any engagement. That doesn't bring any human side to your company, right? So post on your own personal page, be human, be proud about whatever you're posting, whether it's your company, your team, your colleagues, or anything like that. And then ask yourself this week, if you're coming up with kind of ideas, like I don't have anything to talk about, ask yourself this week, what this week, was there something that happened to me, right? Was there a challenge that I'd overcome? Was there something that I learned that I can get out there and share and help others out there? Your goal on LinkedIn is not to go viral. You'll your goal on LinkedIn is to provide value and then connect on that genuine level. All right. So thank you everyone out there for tuning in to lead with soft skills. Again, if you're enjoying this, please share it with those that are around you. And I appreciate you tuning in. And again, 85% of our career success is based on our soft skills, and that's what we're here to do, to strengthen those skills. All right. So stop hiding behind uh the computer. Get out there, post things, uh, post to connect, post to grow, post to add value. So thank you for tuning in to lead with confidence, and we will see you next time. That's your framework for the day. Go lead with it. I'm JP Warren, lead with confidence.